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Supplementary budget for rural welfare |
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News |
June 13, 2000
Sangsad Bhaban, June 12 (UNB) - The Finance Minister today defended the supplementary budget for fiscal 1999-2000 saying the additional allocation sought for approval of Parliament was mainly used for the welfare of the poor rural people and development of the rural infrastructure.
Winding up the discussion on supplementary budget, Shah AMS Kibria said that compared to previous years, the additional expenditure was far less.
He urged the boycotting opposition MPs to return to the House and criticise the budget so that he could accommodate their sentiment and demands.
“I still hope they (opposition) will come back to the House and discuss on the budget,” the finance minister said expressing his sorrow over the opposition’s comments outside the Parliament.
Additional expenditure sought for the Parliament’s approval has been estimated at Tk 1,775 crore, “while, in the year 1995-1996, additional expenditure was Tk 2,965.10 crore,” he said.
Giving the details of additional expenditure of the current fiscal year, Kibria said if one goes through where the additional money has been spent he would realise it was invested, not misused.
Of the total Tk 1,775 crore additional demand, Tk 1,000 crore has been used to implement the Annual Development Programme for 1999-2000 while Tk 300 crore was used for providing price support to the farmers through government purchase of rice.
Tk 234 crore was spent for extending food support to the rural poor and building rural infrastructure through VGF cards, Test Relief and Food for Work programmes, the minister said.
The government also spent additional Tk 40 crore to introduce Pre-Shipment Inspection (PSI) facility to accelerate the pace of revenue collection and Tk 5 crore for rural infrastructure development.
Referring to a comment of opposition MP Advocate Fazle Rabbi (Jatiya Party-Gaibandha), Kibria said it was the present government which appointed 2,000 new doctors, 4,000 nurses and 2,000 teachers.
Replying to some of the comments of Deputy Leader of the House Prof AQM Badriddoza Chowdhury, he said his comments did not match with his dignity as a renowned physician and veteran politician.
“Let me answer to his comment on why we’ve extended budgetary provision to legalise the untaxed money. We are trying to solve the problem created by them,” the finance minister said.
He alleged that it was former president General Ziaur Rahman who initiated the problem of black money in the economy. “Taking over as military ruler, General Zia, to consolidate his political position, gave two slogans: money is no problem and “I will make politics difficult for politicians.”
Kibria said: “He (Zia) used state money to create his party and bank money to create his own men in the business community. He corrupted politics through bribing politicians.That was the start of the default culture and black money problem in the economy.”
Replying to former Finance Minister Saifur Rahman’s criticism, he said that in 1991, after assuming power, the then finance minister talked much to eliminate default culture from the economy. “In a bold step, he even published the names of the defaulters. But what was the end result. Why Saifur could not go further?”
Kibria alleged that during the final year of the previous regime, a lot of bank money was sanctioned because of political influence.
“Now we are facing the consequences of their misdeeds... we’ve given the opportunity (for whitening black money) only to make the economy free from negative influence of huge black money,” he said.
Earlier, JP MP Fezle Rabbi, AL MPs Ramesh Chandra, Zillul Hakim and Prof Abdul Mannan took part in the discussion.
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